Today on Oldest Olympians, we wanted to engage in some speculation: in an alternate timeline, who might have been on Egypt’s football squad had they played at the 1932 Los Angeles Olympics? The question is problematic for two reasons, the first being that there was no football tournament at these Games, as FIFA wanted to promote the World Cup instead. Even if there had been, however, Egypt would not have been there as they boycotted these Olympics due to their lack of proper representation at the International Olympic Committee, where their member was Angelos Bolonaki, a Greek in all but residence, rather than an Egyptian. So why bother to even ask this question? Speculative history can be fun, and we have seen this very inquiry pursued for other teams that might have made the Games. Since Egypt is our area of expertise, we felt that it might be worthwhile in engaging in a little bit of “what if?”

The logical place to search for answers in this regard would be to look at the surrounding international tournaments and see who would have been in their prime in 1932. Thankfully, we have three of the four major data points in this regard, as Egypt took part in the 1928 and 1936 Olympic tournaments, as well as the 1934 World Cup. What about the 1930 World Cup? Egypt was definitely invited, even though they ultimately did not attend, so it stands to reason that there may have been a squad prepared that would give us more clues.

Unfortunately, this does not seem to be the case. According to Yasser Ayoub’s excellent and detailed Arabic-language work “Egypt and Football”, no confirmed account of why Egypt did not participate in 1930 has survived, leaving three common explanations: that the distance to Uruguay was too far, that a squad was prepared but missed their boat, and that the British blocked Egypt’s participation. Ayoub ultimately rejects all of these answers, speculating instead that there simply was not enough interest in Egypt to send a team to the first World Cup, outside of a small faction of diehard football fans. Thus, there was no 1930 lineup from which we can draw more information.

(Mokhtar El-Tetsh)

One obvious inclusion would be Mokhtar El-Tetsh, one of Egypt’s most famous footballers of the era and a powerful striker. El-Tetsh attended all three of the aforementioned tournaments (as well as the 1924 Paris Olympics) and would almost certainly have been on the 1930 World Cup squad had such a team existed. It was during a review of his career, however, that we came across an interesting series of matches, ones that did not involve him.

(Announcement of the squad to face the Hungarians from Al-Ahram, January 31, 1932)

In February 1932, a Hungarian team visited Egypt for a series of matches to test the mettle of the two national squads. A little archival research helped us locate the Egyptian lineup for those games, the first squad of which is listed as follows:

Goalkeeper: Mukhtar Amin

Backs: Kamel Masoud, Ahmed Salem

Other Defense: Amin Sabry, Hassan Raghab, Hassan Al-Swifi

Attackers: Latif, Mansour, Ramzi, Mustafa Kamel, Mahran

(Mohamed Latif)

Ahmed Salem is probably Ahmed Mohamed Salem, who represented Egypt at both the 1924 and 1928 Summer Olympics. Latif is almost certainly Mohammed Latif, who debuted on the national side in 1932 and would go on to play at the Olympics in 1936, while Mansour is likely the Ahmed Mansour who was a reserve for Egypt at both the 1924 and 1928 editions. Mustafa Kamel must be Mustafa Kamel Taha, a well-known player who also appeared at the 1936 Berlin Games. Four of the listed individuals represented Egypt at the 1934 World Cup: Latif, Mustafa Kamel, Kamel Masoud and Hassan Raghab. Additionally, Amin Sabry was part of the team that helped qualify Egypt for the World Cup, although he had no playing time in the tournament itself.

As for the others, Mukhtar Amin never appeared at the Olympics or the World Cup, but he had a lengthy career that stretched back to the first half of the 1920s and extended to at least 1935, so he certainly could have been on the 1932 squad (he may be the same individual as Ahmed Mokhtar, a non-starter on Egypt’s 1928 Olympic team, but this is not confirmed). Hassan Al-Swifi had a lesser-known career, but he did earn domestic titles at the end of the 1920s and first half of the 1930s. “Mahran” is most likely Mahmud Mahran, another domestic title holder of the late 1920s and early 1930s, and all would certainly be candidates for a theoretical 1932 squad. The only individual we were not able to identify was “Ramzi”; although there was a player with the name active at the time, we have not been able to uncover any details about his life or career.

This list gives us a good window into what a potential 1932 squad may have looked like, but there are too many variables to know for certain, especially since the same article lists a “second” and “third” team that includes many more players who were well-known at the time. We feel, however, that this has gone on for long enough without looking into these additional lineups, so we will stop here. We hope, however, that you found this to be at least a little interesting, and that you will join us next time for another Olympic blog post!

Today on Oldest Olympians we have decided to delve into a rather specific topic: British Olympians who competed at the 1948 London Games, but for whom we lack a date of birth. Thanks to some great work by Connor Mah and Rob Gilmore, this is a relatively small list, containing only three entries, and they have been able to uncover some good potential leads. Thus, without further ado, let us present what we know.

(#9 Frank Cole and #8 Colin Hunt pictured with the 1948 British Olympic basketball squad at Getty Images)

Two of these individuals were members of the basketball squad that placed 20^th overall in the tournament, both of whom played domestically for Birmingham Dolobran at the time of the Olympics. The first, Frank “Tiny” Cole, had been active in the prewar era and was an international representative for Britain as early as 1938. He captained the squad during a 1939 trip to Germany and also competed in Switzerland in 1946. Unfortunately, due to the commonness of his name and the limited attention paid to basketball in Britain during this era, Cole is the only one of the three for whom we have no candidate for his identity.

Mah and Gilmore had a little more luck with the second basketball player, Colin L. Hunt. Like Cole, Hunt was active in the prewar era and also represented Great Britain internationally during the 1930s. One candidate is Lucian Colin Hunt, born 1914 and died 1958, who was a resident of Birmingham during this time, but for whom no concrete connection to the Olympian can be found. If his middle initial were incorrect, then he might also be Colin Marwood James Hunt, born June 7, 1912 and died July 25, 1994, but, again, there is no strong evidence connecting him to the basketball player outside of his place of residence and age being appropriate.

The third individual is sports shooter George A. J. Jones, who was 18^th in the small-bore rifle, prone, 50 metres event. Like Cole and Hunt, Jones was an international competitor for Great Britain prior to World War II and remained active through at least 1950, representing the Twickenham Rifle Club after the conflict. He may be George Arthur James Jones, born January 16, 1912 and died in late 1983, but, once again, research has been unable to prove that he and the shooter and one and the same.

That is what we have for today, but we have already got a few more topics in the queue for blog entries, so we hope that you will join us again soon for another post!

Today on Oldest Olympians we are completing our series on competitors with missing full names from the 1928 Amsterdam Olympics by looking into Belgium. Belgium had proven to be one of the more difficult European countries to track down information from, especially in the earlier editions of the Olympics. Thus there are a surprising nine Belgians for whom we are missing full names for from 1928: five members of their coxed eights squad, two weightlifters, one water polo player, and one sailor.

Starting with the last individual, the sailor known as A. J. J. Fridt was a member of the five-man 6-metre class crew at the Games, about each of whom we have varying degrees of information. Fridt is the only one missing a name, but we do know that he was a yacht owner from Antwerp, although this has not helped us identify him. The team finished fifth out of 13 nations. The water polo player, F. Bettens, won a bronze medal in that sport at the 1927 European Championships, but we still do not know his full name. In the Olympic tournament, the Belgians were eliminated in the quarter-finals. Of the weightlifters, we know a little more about V. Van Hamme, who was born c. 1897, as he had competed previously as a middleweight at the 1924 Paris Games. In 1928, however, he was a lightweight and placed 12^th out of 18 entrants. Another entrant was his compatriot J. Adriaenssens, who failed to complete the competition.

(George Anthony, pictured in the middle, who was one of the members of the Belgian coxed eights squad)

In terms of the Belgian coxed eights squad, we are missing full biographical data for the entire team, although we do know the full names of three of its members. For a fourth, J. Jonlet, we suspect that he may have been Jean-Marie Gerard Jonlet, born November 20, 1906 in Liège and died April 10, 1987 in Uccle, although we have not been able to confirm this. R. Macors may be Renier Macors, but this is just a guess based on limited evidence. For the other three, J. Van Malderen, H. Micha, and A. Lambrecht, Jr., we have little to say.

That concludes our rather brief look at the missing names from the 1928 Amsterdam Olympics. In the future, we may look at the 1924 Games, which has a similar cohort of unknown individuals, but we will also be bringing new topics to our weekly blog as well, so we hope that you will join us!

Today on the Oldest Olympics blog, we wanted to make a quick post about a slightly offbeat topic: competitors for whom the country they represented is unknown. Before 1908, there are more than a handful of competitors for whom their nation is debatable. For example, as noted in Jeroen’s recent post about the first Olympics with competitors from across the world, double tennis silver medalist Demetrius Casdagli is listed as Greek in most places, although he never identified as such and a case could be made for him being Egyptian or, more strongly, British.

That situation, however, is not what we are raising here today. Instead, we wanted to highlight the case of two Olympians for whom we do not have any evidence of what country they represented: Fritz Eccard and A. Laffen. Both competed in the Olympic art competitions at the 1912 Stockholm Games, specifically the architecture event.

(The winning architecture entry from the 1912 Olympic art competitions, pictured at 24heures.ch)

As noted by Bill Mallon, “The names of the 1912 Olympic art competitors mostly derive from an anonymous piece of paper in the IOC archives. Although deciphered by Richard Stanton, not all of the names have been matched to known architects”. Thus, lacking this identifying information (as well as the name of their submission), it is unknown what countries Eccard and Laffen might have represented. In Eccard’s case, there are a few individuals by this name and of an appropriate age in Switzerland and Germany, but none that can be linked to architecture, let alone the Olympian. For Laffen, we have no clues to go on at all.

That is all there is to the story at this point, but we thought it would be an interesting case to share with our readers. Before we conclude this entry, however, we wanted to point out one more update. Two posts ago we discussed Olympians who had been removed from our lists recently without any notice. Today we have more to add: Danish rower Ove Nielsen, born November 15, 1924. Until recently, we believed that we had confirmation from 2015 that he was still alive. Unfortunately, it turns out that he died at the end of 2008, long before becoming a nonagenarian, and thus we have removed him from our tables.

Recently on Oldest Olympians, we have been looking into the topic of Olympians from the 1928 Amsterdam Games who are missing their full names in our database. Three of those names come from the 21-man Indian delegation, the majority of which consisted of the gold medal-winning field hockey squad. Thus, broadly speaking, we have a lot of good, albeit not complete, biographical information about the team.

(Dalip Singh)

There were also, however, seven track and field athletes who represented India at the Amsterdam Olympics. We have complete dates of birth and death for only one of them, James Hall, who was entered into several events in both 1924 and 1928 . We know much about another, Dalip Singh, who is alleged to be the first Sikh to represent India at the Games, taking part in the long jump in both 1924 and 1928. Although we do not know Dalip Singh’s date of death, his son Balkrishan won a field hockey gold medal at the 1956 Melbourne Olympics and thus the family is well-known. Two others have at least full names, although we are uncertain if these are the names they actually went by: Dr. B. Chavan (or Chawan) Singh in the 10,000 metres and Gurbachan Singh in the 5,000 metres.

(S. Abdul Hamid)

For the remaining three, we are missing even a full name. S. Abdul Hamid, born c. 1907, was eliminated in the first round of 110 and 400 metres hurdles. He had a successful national career during the late 1920s, but he was usually referred to as simply “Abdul Hamid”. R. Burns of Bengal, meanwhile, was similarly eliminated in the opening rounds of the 100 and 200 metres events. Finally, J. Murphy of Madras was eliminated in round one of the 800 metres.

Unfortunately, with such limited information on these athletes, there is not much to say aside from presenting the mystery. With India being remember at the Games primarily for the achievements in field hockey, however, we did appreciate the opportunity to remind our readers that their sporting history has actually been more diverse.

Today on Oldest Olympians we wanted to do a quick roundup of a handful of miscellaneous cases that merit a little more than a regular post, but a little less than their own blog entry. In that regard, today we wanted to present two removals from the list that have not yet been mentioned, and two cases that went under our radar, but just long enough ago that they do not meet the criteria for an independent post.

(Gavril Serfözö, pictured at Romanian Soccer)

In the former category, we first have Romanian footballer Gavril Serfözö, who in 2019 we featured as having recently turned 93 based on a source from 2011 that celebrated his 85^th birthday. Serfözö, born September 25, 1926 (although we listed him previously as born on the 26^th), represented his country in the tournament at the 1952 Helsinki Olympics, where Romania was eliminated in the qualifying round. With no updates since 2011, he was slated for removal next year but, thanks to a contributor on Wikipedia who sent us a death certificate, we learned that the original report we read had been in error and Serfözö died May 16, 2002 at the age of 75.

(Spencer Spaulding, pictured in the April 10, 1947 edition of The Times Record)

Next, at the end of 2018, we featured the case of American lacrosse player Spencer Spaulding, born December 27, 1926, who had represented the United States in the demonstration event at the 1948 London Olympics. There, his team from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute tied an All-England squad 5-5. He held a doctorate in theoretical physics, had a distinguished career at RCA, and had just published a book of short stories the previous year, so we were much more confident that he was still alive than in Serfözö’s case. Unfortunately, we learned from a blog comment via Connor Mah that he had died earlier in 2018, although we have been unable to locate an obituary or a family contact to confirm an exact date.

Finally, we wanted to end with two nonagenarian deaths pointed out by a user on Wikipedia, which occurred just outside the frame that we would normally announce them on Oldest Olympians, because they went beneath our radar. First, Charles Van Antwerpen, born June 10, 1925, who represented Belgium in rowing’s coxless pairs and coxless fours events at the 1948 and 1952 Olympics respectively, died December 12, 2019 at the age of 94. He was a three-time medalist at the European Championships, including gold in the coxless fours in 1951. Secondly, Franz Frauneder, born December 6, 1927, who represented Austria in the coxed fours at the 1948 London Olympics, died July 9, 2020 at the age of 92.

We wanted to once again thank all of the contributors who have provided us with information that moves our research forward. That is what we have for this week, but next week we intend to look into more missing names from the 1928 Amsterdam Olympics, so we hope that you will join us!

Two posts ago on Oldest Olympians, we began looking into the topic of Olympians from the 1928 Amsterdam Games who are missing their full names in our database. Several individuals sent in information that identified S. de Lanfranchi and Simon de Lanfranchi and L. le Cornu as Léon le Cornu. We greatly appreciate all of the submissions! In that vein, we decided to do another post on this topic, this time looking at the three Swiss competitors with missing full names, all of whom played for their country’s field hockey team at these Olympics.

Switzerland is an oddity in that it is a European nation for whom we have much data missing. The Swiss field hockey team that placed joint-seventh out of nine squads at the 1928 Amsterdam Games in particular has very little biographical data; as of this writing, there is only one starting member for whom we have complete birth and death information. Four others have at least some details. Of those that remain, we know the complete names and clubs for four: Adalbert Koch of the BSC Old Boys, Maurice Magnin and Max Zumstein of Urania Genève Sport, and Roland Olivier of Servette FC.

(Henri Poncet)

Of the remaining seven members, four at least have complete names: Charles Piot, Fred Jenny, Werner Fehr, and Henri Poncet. Poncet was better known as an ice hockey player with AEHC Zurich from 1921 through 1932 and played for the national team in two games at the 1929 European Championships. This brings us to our three missing names. The first, F. Fischer, played for Red Sox, Zürich, and there are two individuals with this surname active on the national team: Alfred and Beppo. Alfred would seem to be the more likely candidate, perhaps going by “Fredi” or “Freddy” Fischer, but reports on initials have known to be mistaken in the past, so Beppo remains a possibility.

For the other two, J. Loubert and R. Rodé, all the information we have on them is their clubs, Varembé and Servette respectively, and we know nothing additional about their careers. We do not have much else to add but, in addition to hoping to bring in more leads with greater attention, we hope as always that you found a few details on the lost history of the Olympics at least a little interesting and that you will join us next time for another post!

Normally when one among the oldest Olympians dies, we prefer to dedicate a post uniquely to them to honor their life and legacy. Unfortunately, the deaths of two very prominent individuals among the Oldest Olympians were announced today and, since we covered one of them only a few days ago and could not choose which to feature, we decided to write a quick blog post mentioning them both.

Firstly, Russian ice hockey player Viktor Shuvalov, born December 15, 1923, died today, April 19, at the age of 97. Shuvalov, who was also a footballer, crowned his decade-long ice hockey career with a trip to the 1956 Cortina d’Ampezzo Games, where, as a member of the Soviet team that won the gold medal, he played in all seven matches. Internationally, he was a World and European Champion in 1954 and 1956 and earned an additional European championship title in 1955. He also won the Soviet Championship five times. He retired from active competition in 1958 and embarked upon a coaching career, in addition to holding several roles in sport administration, and was the last surviving member of his 1956 Olympic champion squad and the oldest living Olympic ice hockey player. Shuvalov’s death means that American Ralph Warburton, born February 7, 1924, who competed at the 1948 St. Moritz Games, is now the oldest living Olympic ice hockey player. Canadian Murray Dowey, born January 3, 1926, who won that gold medal at that edition, is now the oldest living Olympic ice hockey medalist.

Secondly, Zdeněk Růžička, whose 96^th birthday we covered only a few days ago, died shortly thereafter. Růžička took part in three editions of the Olympic Games – 1948, 1952, and 1956 – and won two bronze medals, in the rings and the floor exercise, in 1948. He also competed at the 1954 and 1955 World Championships, won three national all-round individual championships (1948, 1954, and 1956), and carried his country’s flag at the 1956 Melbourne Games before retiring in 1957. He went to coach and train at his club, Sokol Brno 1, and also served as its president. By career, he had training in ceramics and worked at a brick factory. His wife Matylda was also a two-time Olympic medal-winning gymnast. He was the oldest living Olympic medalist to have represented Czechoslovakia, a distinction that now goes to Marie Kovářová, born May 11, 1927, who won a gold medal with the Czechoslovakian gymnastics team at the 1948 London Games.

Recently on the Oldest Olympians blog, we have been highlighting Olympic competitors whose full names are not known. We concentrated on the 1948 London Games partially because there are so few of them from this edition, but also because 1948 is somewhat of an anomaly given that there are no competitors from the 1932 and 1936 Olympics for whom we do not have at least a full name. On the other hand, there are 17 such participants (not counting art competitors) from the 1928 Amsterdam Games: eight from Belgium, three from Switzerland, three from India, two from France, and one from Turkey. Today, we wanted to highlight the latter three cases.

(The 1928 Turkish team, pictured in the document mentioned below)

A. Şefik – Member of Turkey’s wrestling delegation to the 1928 Amsterdam Olympics

A. Şefik represented Turkey in wrestling’s light-heavyweight, Greco-Roman tournament at the 1928 Amsterdam Games, where he lost his first two bouts and was eliminated from the competition. He was known in contemporary reports as “Şefik Bey”, but since “Bey” is just an honorific from that era, and there were many individuals who held it, this does not help us identify him. We do know from a very detailed report in Turkish that Şefik was a member of the Haliç Wrestling Club of Istanbul but, unfortunately, he is the only competitor not named in full from the 1928 Turkish wrestling delegation. There was a founding member of that club by the name of Bahriyeli Şefik, who was active during that era, but we cannot confirm that he is the Olympian, even though it is possible that the “A.” stands for a rarely used part of his name, or even a military rank such as Albay (colonel).

(L. le Cornu, fourth from the left, pictured at the Bibliothèque nationale de France)

L. le Cornu – Member of France’s rowing delegation to the 1928 Amsterdam Olympics

L. le Cornu (or Lecornu) represented France in the coxed fours rowing event at the 1928 Amsterdam Games, where his squad was eliminated in round two. We know that he was a member of Rowing-Club Paris, and that he was the namesake of the “Le Cornu” coxed fours squad that won the French national championships in 1929. Unfortunately, this has been all we have been able to learn about him, despite him being referenced several times in the Bibliothèque nationale de France.

(S. de Lanfranchi, pictured as the rightmost wrestler, at the Bibliothèque nationale de France)

S. de Lanfranchi – Member of France’s wrestling delegation to the 1928 Amsterdam Olympics

Similarly, the Bibliothèque nationale de France provides us with a picture of wrestler S. de Lanfranchi, but does not provide enough information for us to identify him. De Lanfranchi represented his country in the heavyweight, Greco-Roman event at the 1928 Amsterdam Games, but lost his first two bouts and was eliminated from the competition. We know that he was active in the years surrounding the Olympics, but we have been unable to discover anything more than that.

We wanted to raise these cases not only to publicize our research in the hopes of finding some new leads, but also because it highlights a fact about much of the missing information in the database: we lack the names of these individuals because we cannot access the resources necessary to track them down, not because they are particularly mysterious. By 1928, most athletes had to truly earn their way to the Olympics, and all three of these competitors had notable accomplishments outside of the Games that were reported in the press. Unfortunately, the press of this era often left out full names of individuals to save printing space, meaning that the further back one goes, the more difficult it becomes to recreate the history. This problem is not limited to the countries mentioned in this post; although American newspapers are perhaps the most accessible digitally, there are still many American Olympians from earlier Games who remain unidentified. All this is to say is that research into sporting history is not always a binary switch, where one simply needs to locate the correct document in order to solve the puzzle (although this can certainly be helpful!). Often times, it requires piecing together enough evidence to finally crack the riddle, so we hope that you will share any tip, big or small, that might help us shed some light on these sportsmen and we thank you as always for spending some of your time with us!

It would not be the Oldest Olympians if we did not make some connection between the recently-deceased Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, nearly 100 years old, and the Games. The short answer would be that he officially opened the 1956 Melbourne Olympics. A slightly more involved answer would be to say that he was the father of HRH Princess Anne, who competed in equestrian eventing at the 1976 Montreal Games, and the grandfather of Zara Phillips, who did the same in 2012. We, however, have a more tenuous connection.

Philip is often cited as being one of the modern developers of the sport of carriage driving, which is exactly what it sounds like – a competitive horse test in which the animals pulled carriages and a rider behind them. This event’s history at the Olympics, however, is far older than even the Duke of Edinburgh, having been held at the 1900 Paris Olympics. Known as the “mail coach” or “four in hand” competition, there were at least 28 entrants from six countries, although only the top four finishers are known, and individuals could have more than one entry in the competition (more precisely – the owners of the horses could have different riders). The winner, Belgian Georges Nagelmackers, for example, had two entries, and was a wealthy individual who was involved in the transportation industry.

(Depiction of the fishing tournament at the 1900 Paris Olympics)

Officially, the 1900 Paris Games contained several interesting events, including basque pelota, croquet, and underwater swimming. Unofficially, non-medal events were held in automobile racing, ballooning, baseball, boules, firefighting, and fishing, many of which have interesting stories and competitors worthy of their own blog posts. So why is this equestrian driving competition afforded Olympic status? Up until 1996, it was generally not, and until recently the winners were not listed in the official IOC database. It was only through advocacy of Olympic historian Bill Mallon, based on research by Karl Lennartz and Walter Teutenberg, that this event (among others) has come to be considered Olympic.